


A Hint of Hesitation

by mylordshesacactus



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Breaking Conditioning, Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Slow Burn, pre-Widowtracer
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-22
Updated: 2016-05-14
Packaged: 2018-06-03 20:58:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 14,623
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6626056
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mylordshesacactus/pseuds/mylordshesacactus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Every shot the same. Three. Two. One. And then the trigger.</p><p>A single death can change everything.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Countdown

 

_Distance: 123 meters._

_Elevation: 18 meters._

_Slight easterly crosswind; 1.4 kilometers per hour._

_Target: Lena Oxton_.

A lesser agent might have fiddled with the rifle in their target’s absence; tried to line up a better angle, triple-checked the scope. Become restless with waiting. Widowmaker just watches. Breathes slow and deep.

She has her shot. The target will move into it on her own.

She can’t see the door to the tiny café open, but she recognizes the play of light so well she can almost hear the jingle. Not a moment later, a hint of garish yellow tinged with blue light, just to the right of her sights. She smiles.

Oxton _—_ _Tracer_ , whatever that nonsense callsign had once meant _—_ is relaxed, leaning languidly on the counter, grinning and winking at the pretty barista. Her order is simple, short, and she pushes herself back onto her feet to pay. A bloodless finger starts to tighten on a trigger…

The sudden flash of lightning blue is, for a moment, cause for alarm. Widowmaker blinks rapidly, looking up for a moment as if she expects to find her target on the rooftop with her before cursing herself for the foolish impulse. Oxton is back just to the side of her shot when she lowers her head to the sights again, laughing and giving the barista a joking snap-to-attention salute as she hands something over _—_ a mug, it looks like. Something that had been about to fall and break. How chivalrous.

Now, finally, the girl makes that essential step to her left to pay for her coffee. _Perfect_. The back of Oxton’s head is pinned in the crosshairs like a moth on a card.

The thrill of a perfect execution is already shivering through her veins. Her handlers will be glad to be rid of this particular pest. Certainly _Tracer_ has been a thorn in Widowmaker’s side for long enough. So many of her recent failures are due entirely to this girl’s irritating intervention, the laughter, the constant jokes _—_ and here, now, quick and simple and cold, she will put an end to this ridiculous game for good. It makes her heart nearly thunder.

She pulls the trigger, and almost imagines she can hear windows shatter.

Golden eyes drift closed as she takes a long, deep breath. Part of her is unhappy, unsatisfied. For such a slippery target, this was too easy. The kill rings hollow.

Distantly curious to see the outcome, she brings down her visor and transfers the adjustment calculations from her scopes.

The first thing she sees is a blue glow.

It takes a moment to sink in. The glow is not unanticipated; the schematics she’s studied for the purpose of this assignment suggest the chronal accelerator has an independent power source. It would remain operational after the girl’s death _—_ perhaps that, she thinks coolly, might offer some consolation to her friends. They will have a body to bury.

The only problem is that there doesn’t appear to be a body. The telltale pulse of electric blue is not coming from a chest harness, but rather the hint of a pistol poking out from behind the counter. Under the visor, Widowmaker stiffens, frowns, zooms in further as her heart rate starts to steadily climb.

Lena Oxton peers around the counter, eyes wide, gesturing “stay down” to someone that Widowmaker can’t see.

That’s not possible.

_That’s not possible._

She does not _miss_.

She fumbles with nerveless fingers to reload the rifle, but it’s too late. Before she can touch the weapon her target disappears in a streak of light. Widowmaker has arranged her kill too perfectly; from here, there is no chance of finding another location for an ambush, and Tracer is an unrealistic target for assassination by means of direct confrontation. The moment she realizes _she_ is the target rather than an innocent bystander, all she has to do is run. And she is very good at running.

Checking in with her handler is done on autopilot; her voice would shake if she let herself think about reporting that she’s failed. For a moment, there is silence on the other end of the comm. Then, tight with fury: “ _What happened_.”

Her mind is racing. Could she have misaligned her shot? No, she had put too much time and attention into those calculations. The killshot should have been perfect. The target hadn’t moved. It makes no sense…

Just possibly...no.

But _—_ a moment of hesitation, a slight tension, breath catching, the mere hint of a flinch just before taking the shot _—_ it might be sufficient, just barely, to have sent her aim off by _just_ enough…

That’s not possible. That didn’t happen. _She does not miss_.

Belatedly, Talon’s prize assassin realizes she is kneeling on a rooftop, staring at the rifle in her hands like a foreign object. Like she’s never seen it before. Her hands barely know where to rest.

“I…” She blinks. “I don’t know.”

* * *

“ _Approaching objective. ETA: Two point five minutes._ ”

Winston rolls his shoulders and glances at the ceiling in acknowledgement. “Thanks, Athena.”

Tracer tosses a casual salute at one of the sensors as well, bouncing on the soles of her feet. Not that she doesn’t trust Athena, mind, but she likes to fly her _own_ birds. Always used to get the chance to fly, before Petras. With just a handful of Winston’s friends available since the recall, though, they can’t afford to not have her ready to mobilize the second they’re in range.

Talon has _so_ much to answer for. This, and the whole terrorism thing.

A pack of bubblegum hits her in the face.

“Ow! Hey!”

Hana, lounging on top of her mech and in danger of hitting her head on the ceiling of the crowded dropship, bats her eyelashes with cherubic innocence. Tracer flips her off, and Winston heaves the kind of long, heavy sigh only a genetically-modified space gorilla is truly capable of.

“Kids,” he says warningly.

“She started it!”

Hana laughs. “Just seeing if you were awake,” she says brightly. “Testing for server lag.”

“I’ll lag _your_ servers,” Tracer mutters under her breath. Hana puts on her most aggrieved look, and she can’t pretend to be mad anymore _—_ not in the face of that exaggerated heartbreak. “Quit it!” she laughs. “All right, you’re forgiven!”

“ _Estimated time to objective: T-minus sixty seconds._ ”

“Tracer,” Winston rumbles as everyone does last-minute checks on their equipment. “You’re on recon.”

Didn’t exactly need the reminder, but, time and a place for ribbing. “Aye-aye, Winston.”

Hana slides down and holds out a fist. “For luck?”

Tracer’s lips twitch as she taps her fist against the kid’s. She’s a sweet girl, end of the day; little spitfire, with her heart in the right place. It’s possible Lena’s a tiny bit protective.

Hana accepts the fistbump, and then the five moves after it; up, down, crossed wrists, clasped hands, and a snap with their free hands before shooting twin finger guns with identical cocky winks.

Nah. She doesn’t see anyone familiar in this kid at all.

“ _Objective located. T-minus ten...Five. Four. Three_ …”

For once, they’ve gotten to the objective before Talon. Makes a nice change, not stepping off the dropship and into a hail of bullets. Call her crazy, Tracer’s always considered the absence of a hail of bullets preferable to the alternative, in most cases.

She waits a few moments, just to be sure they didn’t spring some trap by arriving, then blinks across an open area and gets moving. Always has to suppress the instinct to make sure the others are all right setting up defenses on their own, these days, it’s not like before when they usually had backup available.

 _Winston, buddy_ , she thinks as she takes a flight of stairs two at a time. _We’ve gotta get some more people_.

But the fact that there’s so few of them these days makes it even more essential that she doesn’t do anything stupid. She spots the glint of metal on a rooftop in time to drop to cover, too slow not to berate herself furiously while doing it. _Anything stupid like_ that _. Think, Tracer!_

Luckily, the stone pillar is situated perfectly; she’s careful as she stands, pressing her back against it, keeping it between her and the threat. While she’s got a secure position, she double-checks the charge on her harness, flips her pistols in and out of their holster. Sniper position’s probably too far to actually hit anything accurately, but close enough that her fire will at least _connect_. Cause some annoyance, harry the enemy agent. That’s what she’s here for, after all!

Right. Three, and two, and here we _—_

The shot, she’ll learn later, doesn’t come from the rooftop decoy.

* * *

 Metal clicks on metal as she nudges the splintered chronal accelerator with her foot. The web was spun well.

No headshot this time _—_ no need to bother, when the girl wears her true vulnerability so boldly on her chest. This way even has a certain poetry to it. A bullet at the right stress point, and that little reckless light goes out. In all likelihood, she didn’t even have time to be afraid.

 _Didn’t have time_. That would be irony, no?

Widowmaker drops to one knee, picks up a fallen gauntlet and gives it a clinical examination. An efficient system. Ingenious, if somewhat lacking in elegance. The ape knows his trade. And...ah. There you are.

“ _I read you._ ” Perfect. It’s _Winston_ who answers immediately when she presses the comm button. “ _Something to report? Tracer? What’s your position?_ ”

Widowmaker smiles. “Such a pity,” she purrs, glancing at the empty harness. “I’m told she was your favorite.”

She doesn’t wait for the moment of shocked silence on the other end to pass; the channel is unceremoniously closed. She pauses for a moment, then activates a homing beacon she remembers from the schematics and tosses the gauntlet into the tangle of harness straps. It would be cruel, after all, to leave them with _nothing_.

* * *

 Zarya, bless her soft heart, had protested.

Too soon, she’d said, squaring up to Winston like she was ready to fight the poor thing. It’s too soon, she’s barely been home six hours. Look at the child, she’s still shaking. It’s not right and it’s not safe for us either. The others would’ve backed her up, too, if Tracer and her brand-new accelerator hadn’t insisted she _wanted_ to come.

Not like Zarya was wrong, is the thing. She does still feel a little jittery, but...look, that’s not about to go away any time soon. It’s hard to explain, the way it feels to stop _existing_ but not be dead. Like being sucked out an airlock. Or, well. That’s about what she figures. Can’t exactly speak from experience, there. But the breath being sucked from her lungs, the jerk as the world’s sucked away, the total absence of anything, even empty air, to touch. The shock, the blindness, the _cold_ …

If she had to choose between the slipstream and hard vacuum, she’d _probably_ still pick the former. But only because she knows Winston would be there to bring her back.

She’s got nothing to fear from the slipstream, Tracer’s always said with a grin; look how much it likes her, tryin’ to call her back all the time! _As good as old friends, it and me_. But it’s harder than she’d ever admit even to the people who’re basically family, blinking for the first time after four real-world months in limbo. (She never lets herself so much as think the obvious question of how long it had been for _her_ , because that gets real existential real fast, and there’s some things the friendly neighborhood flygirl isn’t built to handle.) It’s _hard_ , stepping back into the void when she’s spent so long desperate to breach it.

Like drowning. Trapped under ice but without even that much of something solid to cling to.

An explosion way too close for comfort knocks her off her feet. She’s only spared the worst of it by a shield she hadn’t even noticed Zarya throwing up around her.

Okay. Okay. Maybe she’d had a point. Waiting longer than a few hours before being dropped into combat _might_ have been a good idea. But the only way to bleed off the fear is to dive right back in, use the harness like she always has until she remembers that she actually _loves_ this. That she’s safe, and she’ll always come back. Like riding a bike! If riding a bike required breaking the laws of physics, or at least bending ‘em a bit. And Tracer’s a right tough little thing, she’s always had that going for her.

Her pistols spring to her hands without her even having to think about it, and a little of the lingering vertigo finally settles down. _Tracer_ controls the slipstream, not the other way around. She grins. All right. Talon’s overdue for a reminder of that as well. _Third time’s the charm._

Bit of a pun there. Gallows humor, yeah?

Mercy over the comm, urgent but not panicked: “ _Pinned down. I need backup!_ ”

One-two-three up a staircase, and she vaults over the side guns blazing, and oh, _yes_. She’d forgot how much _different_ this felt from a real desync. She drops a charge and hits the rewind back up to the balcony, just in time to see Unlucky Group Of Mercs #57 flying through the air. Home sweet home.

“You’re clear, love!”

“ _Thank you, Trac—_ _ah!_ ”

Tracer’d already been zipping around back to ground level, but she stumbles to a halt at the cry of pain. “Mercy, what _—_ _whoa!_ ”

Forgot the heavily-armed mercs for a second, there, and she pays for it as they open fire. It only takes a heartbeat to blink out of the way, but one of them still manages to wing her in the side. Bleeding, not badly, Mercy’ll stitch her up after _—_

“ _Mercy!_ ” She fires as she bolts between scraps of cover. “You all right? Did anyone see what happened to ‘er?”

Pharah’s voice, hard, answers on the heels of a distant explosion. “ _Sniper fire. I have her. Widowmaker disabled her wing in the air; I think this arm is broken, but nothing more._ ”

Mercy on the line, then, thank god. “ _I’ll live. Focus on the mission._ ”

A Talon mook sticks his head around the corner. Tracer lets off a rapid-fire couple rounds with one hand without taking the other away from her mouth. “Don’t suppose you got that sniper, Pharah?”

“ _She got clear too quickly. I’m about to change that._ ”

Winston gives a distant roar of pain and anger; if Tracer hadn’t been about to argue already, that’d have decided it. “Don’t even!” This time she gets the rushing merc full in the chest; he drops, and she flips her pistols back, cracking her knuckles as she pictures her route onto the rooftops. “Help the big guy. This one’s on _me_.”

* * *

It’s been four months, and in the middle of combat Widowmaker _still_ catches herself waiting sometimes.

That first skirmish had been the biggest shock. Of course she’d been irritated with herself for it, for the child’s foolishness of being surprised when the object of a recent _assassination_ didn’t turn up on the windowsill with a quip. She tried to tell herself the moment of disorientation upon remembering brought her pleasure. _No need to deal with that nuisance anymore_.

She just misses the challenge. That is all.

Of course she’d eventually won their little game, that had been inevitable, and it’s only natural that she be dissatisfied with how simple her job seems now by comparison. If she’s given an assignment that truly tests her abilities, this strange unbalanced feeling will disappear.

Briefly, it occurs to her that she could just as easily have shot the pretty doctor through the eye. She dismisses the thought as she tests her grapple, swings herself around the corner of a building and onto the next where she can set up again. Battlefield medics are replaceable. It will do more damage to Overwatch having their doctor out of commission. The demoralizing fallen-angel imagery is a side effect, but not an unwelcome one.

Some part of her that is not quite Widowmaker whispers that she hadn’t thought of any of this when she took the shot. It’s uncomfortable. She crushes it and picks out that damned human rocket launcher.

 _One shot, one kill._ Armor that thick would just be wasting her opportunity, surely, but there must be weak points...she takes shallow breaths, calming her heartbeat to steady her aim as her tactical visor feeds her schematics, and alters the trajectory to take out the woman’s jump jets. Cripple their air support. A better use of the shot.

Killing Overwatch agents is not the objective, the objective is to prevent theft of the payload. Widowmaker never loses sight of her mission. This is what she was created to do. Talon _cannot_ fault her for that!

A blur of blue-white lightning streaks across the battlefield.

Before she fully realizes it, Widowmaker breaks into a smile.

_Hello again._

For the first time in four months, she feels her sluggish heart rate increase, just barely. The kill loses its warmth without any challenge. So, Overwatch _does_ still have the resources to scrape together a replacement chronal accelerator. She’d begun to think the universe had finally collected on Lena Oxton’s borrowed time.

Her soft sigh is predatory. The thrill of the chase. Not relief.

The moment of distraction costs her; Pharah is gone, and she has no clear line on anyone else. The payload is moving. Widowmaker deactivates her visor and stands, preparing to grapple to a better location.

“ _Ha!_ ”

The shout gives her just enough time to dive out of the way as pulse fire peppers the wall behind her. She rolls and comes up on one knee, gun raised and smiling; automatic fire strafes the rooftop before she even completes the maneuver, but it’s already too late. Tracer has vanished in a streak, and returns fire from a ninety-degree angle, forcing Widowmaker to throw herself out of the way once more.

“Miss me, love?” That familiar, taunting grin is sharper than she remembers.

 _Yes. Oh, yes_.

The rifle extends in her hand as she answers with a smirk. “I _never_ miss.”

 _This_ is the dance she remembers, but her body won’t respond. She shies away from that first snap head shot, finds herself aiming at shoulders and gauntlets and sending rapid bullet spray around her enemy’s legs to force her to move, rather than going for center mass. It’s like _—_ being afraid _—_

She hears the crack of her nose breaking before she registers either the pain or the flash of blue, and for a moment she’s actually hurt by Tracer’s peal of mocking laughter as time warps around her, depositing her safely back around the rooftop shed.

“Oh, you got _slow_ while I was gone, didn’t ya?”

Gritting her teeth, Widowmaker raises the rifle and steps forward. One shot in the chest, eliminate the target again. Of course, by then, the target is gone. This time Tracer doesn’t bother striking her in the face with a gauntlet; the girl blinks behind her and as she’s turning blinks again, using the momentum to throw herself at Widowmaker’s knees and bringing them both down in a confused tangle of latex and body armor.

Tracer disappears before she can get her bearings, let alone push herself onto her feet; there are footsteps from the spot she was in three seconds ago, and Widowmaker’s eyes widen as a heavy, high-powered shot throws up concrete powder near her head, rather than the light hail of pulse rounds.

Tracer, thankfully, doesn’t bother firing again; by the time Widowmaker’s grapple connects with the wall behind the young woman she’s already tossed the stolen rifle over the edge of the roof, and her cry as she’s grabbed by the throat and slammed too late against the concrete turns into a rough laugh.

“Keep _up_ , love, this is too easy!”

She’s not wrong, she’s not wrong, and Widowmaker could _strangle_ her for it. If she had a weapon now she would shoot out that damned accelerator just to make Tracer stop talking, stop running, stop ruining what had once been the only hunt worth her time.

There’s no real amusement behind her smile. “I may shoot you in the head next time.”

Laughing eyes darken with a true anger that almost surprises her. “Shoulda done it when you ‘ad the chance.”

The whir of pistols charging is all the warning she receives, and it’s just barely enough. She manages to grab one wrist, slam it against the concrete with enough force that the pistol is dropped and flips back into its holster; the other, Widowmaker doesn’t have time to control. She has to release her grip on the girl’s windpipe (one she hadn’t exploited, _why_ , in the heat of battle, hadn’t she clamped down, silenced her, eliminated her for good?) in favor of clumsily knocking her gun to the side. A quick tattoo of white-blue fire scatters over the roof.

Tracer gives an uncharacteristic snarl, raises her hand again to fire, and just for a moment Widowmaker’s frustration disappears. Familiar, welcome coolness snaps down in its place.

Her grappling hook is still firmly anchored in the wall. She releases her hold on the girl in the same moment she extends the cord, catching it on her fingertips and throwing a loop around Tracer’s wrist; a flick of her own gauntlet is enough to tighten the wire, and in the same moment that she takes up all slack and catches Tracer’s right wrist in midair like a fly in a web her own hand comes up to meet the pistol just being released to find its owner’s hand.

She doesn’t have time to stop it, and settles for adding to its momentum. The shot goes wild, Tracer’s free arm forced awkwardly across her own body, pinned between them.

Widowmaker smiles. This time, as she tugs the pulse pistol from her captive’s fingers, she means it.

She knows how this ends. How victory feels, when her prey is trapped and helpless. She will press a kiss to the barrel of the pistol humming under her touch, she will force it under Lena Oxton’s lovely jaw, and she will smile and feel dizzy with the rush as she wishes the girl pleasant dreams and pulls the trigger.

In the ringing stillness while she stands frozen with the weapon in her hand, Tracer stops breathing. Then, quickly, she recovers. Her frame blurs, blazing as she tries to blink, and Widowmaker alone _might_ have been pulled off her feet; but the grappling cord around her wrist is buried firmly in cement, and she succeeds in nothing but yanking it tighter. She gives a cry of pain that is nearly a scream as she’s jerked back into place, the wire cutting viciously into her.

Widowmaker would have expected defiance, maybe more of that unexpected fury. But Tracer’s attention darts back and forth, looking for a way out; the tactical filters of her visor are unnecessary to tell how quickly the girl’s heart is beating.

That same faint, disturbing hint of a thing that is _not_ Widowmaker falters at the level of fear in her eyes.

Talon chatter in her ear. She never keeps her comm on in the field; the last thing she needs is that kind of distraction. Emergency transmissions, however, override everything. Their forces are in retreat. _Of course they are. Fools_.

Finish off the Overwatch agent, leave her on the roof for her teammates to find. Simple, quick, impersonal. Everything Widowmaker knows. Everything she _is_.

“ _Au revoir_ ,” she says, and empties the pistol into Tracer’s leg.

* * *

Angela Ziegler frowns suspiciously at a bruise over her patient’s ribs.

“Mmm.”

Fareeha sighs. “I’m _fine_ , Mercy.”

Angela raises a wry eyebrow as she glances up. “The last time you told me you were fine,” she says crisply, “You had a concussion and a piece of shrapnel lodged in your shoulder. You have been banned from self-diagnosis. Now, on a scale of one to ten...”

She’s briefly distracted as Zarya finally shoulders open the door to the medbay of this week’s HQ, one hand carefully protecting Tracer’s head as she carries the poor girl inside.

“How are you feeling, Lena?” She gets a thumbs-up in reply and turns back to Fareeha’s ribs, which are probably fine. “All right. This seems to be superficial.”

“I _told_ you that.”

“Don’t argue with the doctor, Pharah,” Zarya warns her, setting Lena down carefully on an open bed nearby. “We need you at full strength. Do as you’re told. And you,” she adds, firm but softer, as she pokes Tracer’s collarbone to make her lie down. “Be still for once. It won’t kill you.”

“Might just,” comes the retort, but she doesn’t protest the kiss Zarya places on her head, and Angela’s heart melts a bit. “Fine. I’ll be good.”

Angela has to laugh. “That will be the day.” She takes a moment to check the position of her sling _—_ yes, yes, modern medical technology, it’s a miracle, she should know, but a transverse fracture doesn’t heal in two hours for all the nanobiology in the world. “Who’s next? Winston?”

The stubborn gorilla shifts. “I’m...fine, Mercy. Take care of Tracer.”

Her eyes narrow.

Hana, curled up in an empty bed and uncharacteristically quiet up until now, gives a high, short laugh. “Bad idea, Winston,” she chirps. “Don’t argue with a lady who carries a big metal stick around all the time.”

Angela sends her a warning look. “The caduceus,” she says sternly, “is an ancient symbol of medicine. Of healing, and hope. Compassion for all. It is not something to be used for causing harm, and it is _certainly_ not a weapon.”

Winston gives an awkward cough. “We should let you work. Come on, Han _—_ ”

“ _Sit down_ ,” Angela snaps. “Or I hit you with the stick.”

Winston sits meekly.

Across the room, Lena laughs. That’s reassuring. She’s stable, for now, and the damage should heal; but Angela won’t pretend not to worry. Of course, it would take more than being shot multiple times at point-blank range to keep Tracer subdued for long. _If we could only bottle that resilience_.

“Listen to the kid, love,” she says with a lopsided grin, waving her fingers at Winston from across the room. “Girl knows her strategy, yeah?”

Hana shoots a finger gun in her direction. “You can say that again.”

“Queen’a the zerg rush,” Lena says fondly. Hana gives a horrified, deeply wounded gasp.

“ _You take that back!_ ”

“It was a _compliment!_ ”

“Cheap noob tactic!”

“ _No one is declaring blood feuds in my medbay!_ ” Angela pinches the bridge of her nose. “Anyone who is _not_ injured, please leave. _Not you, Winston!_ ”

Fareeha leaps to her feet without complaint; Hana looks like she wants to stay and argue until Zarya casually cracks her knuckles, at which point their youngest recruit hastily decides that being elsewhere sounds great.

Angela gives a sigh of relief. “You too, I’m afraid, _Liebling_.”

Zarya smirks. “ _Da_. Someone has to keep order.” She ducks her head to kiss Angela’s jaw, giving her shoulder a gentle squeeze. “Get rest,” she orders. “And eat something.”

“Out.”

With one last firm look Zarya nods and leaves, taking a detour only to cover Lena’s face with her hand and shove her back onto her pillow as she opens her mouth to make a smart remark.

“You asked for that,” Angela informs the girl over her shoulder. Lena, apparently under the impression she still possesses dignity, blows a chunk of hair out of her face and refuses to respond.

Winston chuckles, then hisses as she starts to loosen his exosuit. “I’m fine, Mercy, really.”

Him and his codenames. He and Tracer _—_ _Lena_ , they have Angela doing it now too. No wonder they get on so well.

There, finally. The section of body armor is heavier than it looks, and Angela tries to lower it with one hand and nearly drops it on her foot.

She hears Lena sit up behind her, concerned. “You all right, love?” She nods, waves off the concern.

“You,” she informs Winston, “Have been _shot_.”

He makes a face. “It’s not _—_ _augh!_ ”

The first time she’d triggered that low, animal snarl from Winston, it had nearly given Angela a heart attack. By now she just lifts a pointed eyebrow and holds the medicated pressure pad against his arm so it can begin disinfecting the wound.

At least he has the grace to look sheepish. “Just a _little_ shot.”

If both of her hands weren’t out of commission, Angela would have thrown them in the air.

“ _Field agents_ ,” she complains, checking the exit wound. “It’s not a competition! You are not going to impress me with your pain tolerance. All of you!” She clucks her tongue, jabbing Winston with a biotic stimulant slightly harder than she otherwise might have. “All the same. Last week I told Fareeha to rest for twenty-four hours and found her and Zarya three hours later having a push-up contest!”

Lena gives an evil laugh.

“Oh, _Mercy_ ,” she says slyly. “Would you look at that _blush_.”

Angela hefts the caduceus menacingly, and Tracer shuts up.

* * *

For safety’s sake, Lena is staying here tonight.

She doesn’t really need to be under observation, Angela’s fairly certain of that; but she’s certainly in no shape to be walking on that leg, and if left to her own devices Lena _will_ try. The best-case scenario is that she will genuinely forget that she nearly had her leg shredded not six hours ago.

Some days Angela wonders if the young woman’s relationship with the timestream might affect her memory for lived events. Most days, she’s positive that this is just Lena being Lena. A reckless, impulsive flygirl to the end. Until she’s had a chance to heal at least to the point of Angela feeling comfortable putting her on crutches, she is staying in a medical facility where Athena can keep an eye on her vitals.

Angela glances at the clock and winces. It’s much later than she thought, and she suspects Zarya for one will be unimpressed by the two granola bars she’s eaten since returning from the mission. _She’ll live_. Angela will make up her rest when fewer people are bleeding on the floor of her medbay.

She’d switched most of the lights off hours ago, to let Lena sleep; now, stifling a yawn, she’s about to switch off her muted desk lamp and go find her own bed when there’s a light tap on the door.

Angela sighs faintly, and is surprised to find Winston _—_ arm freshly bandaged _—_ waving to her from outside the double doors, and not a worried Russian bodybuilder. She presses the control to buzz him in, belatedly cringing as she realizes she’s forgotten to check whether the buzzer itself is deactivated. It isn’t, but there’s no noise; a brief popup text from Athena informs her that she’s switched off all audio except emergency alerts, and hopes this is acceptable.

Winston moves deceptively quietly, for a creature of his bulk.

“How is she?” he asks in an undertone, sitting down next to Mercy’s desk. She places a hand on his good arm and squeezes reassuringly.

“Stable,” she assures him. “Likely to make a full recovery.” She’s _very_ lucky _—_ those pulse rounds have a tendency to partially self-cauterize, especially at that range, and Widowmaker failed to hit any important arteries. But it was a close thing. By the time Fareeha had gotten to her, she had already lost a lot of blood and was going into shock. Lena has the spirit of a lion; but she is very small, built thin and light, and her body has few enough reserves to fall back on.

Winston rubs his face and gives a long sigh.

“She should never have been alone up there,” he says. “We need more agents. This is my fault.”

Only one of those statements is true _—_ but it’s _painfully_ true.

“The others are coming,” Angela reminds him. “Did I tell you I finally heard back from Mei? She says she wants to help.”

“No.” Winston looks relieved. “I must have been busy. That’s good.”

It won’t be enough, not even with the rest on their way; Torbjörn had been one of the first to respond to the recall, is eager to join them, but he has commitments of at least equal importance to theirs. Satya has agreed to be on call whenever they're in the same area, and even Lucio is finally en route; he would have come earlier if they hadn't desperately needed a clean PR ally. Even Reinhardt, who had jumped at the call, is out of commission; with the difficulty they’ve had in contacting Genji they need someone to do it in person, and Winston had judged the delay to be worth gaining both of them in the long run.

Now, though…

“At least the Widowmaker was feeling merciful today.” Angela hates having to say it. The idea of any of them, especially Hana, or Lena _—_ god, she still thinks of her as a child _—_ surviving not due to a rescue, their own skill, or progressive medical care or even dumb luck, but at the whim of that _murderer_ …

Winston stiffens like she’s touched an exposed nerve. Angela frowns.

She doesn’t have to ask him to explain what’s wrong. With a wary look at the sleeping Lena, he takes out a handheld drive and plugs it into Angela’s computer.

“Athena,” he rumbles softly. “Run that analysis again.”

 _Working_ , says the chat box that pops up on screen in lieu of the familiar voice. Then, _Results are consistent, Winston. The data indicates a statistically significant decrease in fatal or attempted-fatal attacks by the Talon agent known as Widowmaker, beginning this date_. The timestamp is achingly familiar to any of the team who had been involved in creating Lena’s second accelerator, racing against time in a desperate attempt to get her back before they lost her forever.

It takes almost a full minute for Angela to realize what Winston is thinking.

“Absolutely not,” she says, only remembering at the last moment to pitch her voice low enough not to disturb her patient. “This is a coincidence. We’ve gotten better at avoiding her.”

Winston scratches the back of his head. “Maybe. But ever since Tracer…”

“She’s missing, that’s all there is to it.”

An irritable huff. “There are three options. Either it’s a coincidence, or Widowmaker has started taking nonlethal shots against Overwatch agents, which means her conditioning may be breaking down.”

“Or? Try again.” Angela doesn’t want to be the harsh one. If there were even a chance of believing this… What has been done to Amélie Lacroix is a crime, cruelty of a sort that defies words; but it has been _done_. False hope will kill them all.

“Or,” rumbles Winston, “ever since Tracer, Widowmaker has started missing _accidentally_ , specifically when facing Overwatch agents, without realizing it. Which means her conditioning _is_ breaking down.”

_Is it even possible…?_

No. Amélie is long dead, and mourned, and for her sake as much as anyone else’s Widowmaker must be put out of her misery. It gives Angela no pleasure to think it. She _wants_ to believe in the possibility Winston has presented, she does, she wants it desperately. Of course those who remember her want Amélie back. But...believing in second chances is one thing, the odds of this are another, and Angela is a scientist. 

“We can’t know the truth,” she says finally. “Not without more proof. We can’t afford to assume.”

Another long pause. They’re both watching Lena, the main power unit of her harness set aside on a table but still surrounded by a faint blue glow. Subdued, Winston finally taps a control and takes his data stick back.  
  
“No,” he says. “We can’t. But we can all use some hope right now.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cw for this chapter: very, very brief mention of suicide/suicidal ideation, but it's there, stay safe kids.

This is refreshing, to say the least.

Widowmaker has no patience for sloppy operations, and the more _assistance_ she is given the worse the odds become of completing her assignments. It reflects badly on her as an asset. It displeases her superiors, and she does not appreciate being _corrected_ for the mistakes of others.

The mercenaries to whom she has been assigned are crude, inelegant creatures of no creativity, but there are a great many of them. Overwhelming numbers may yet defeat Overwatch where skill has failed. And then this nonsense will be behind her, forgotten.

 _Statistically significant decrease_. Figures lie. She has done everything they ask of her.

For once, she has not lost control of the mission to a group of incompetents. For once, there is a very real chance that this minor skirmish will spell the end of Overwatch and its brief resurgence. _Finally_. It will be over, Talon will be rid of them, and Widowmaker will return to her quiet, perfect kills. There will be no one to stand in her way.

Ever again.

She’ll finally be able to stop reading regular updates on active agents’ profiles, chuckling over their fumbling exploits, planning her tactics around their weaknesses. With such wild cards removed from the deck, she muses as she shoots out a window near where the doctor has just ducked to cover and showers the area with glass, her biggest worry should be no longer needing to adjust her plans on the fly. It wouldn’t do for those skills to get rusty.

Perhaps she’ll have to arrange for a few small assignments to cross Tracer’s path, to keep Widowmaker on her toes. The young woman certainly has a gift for the unexpected…

Her next shot, which would have punched a hole through Zaryanova’s right shoulder where it stuck out from behind an arch, goes wild by almost an arm’s length. It takes a chunk of masonry out of the column and neatly alerts the woman to her danger; Widowmaker’s eyes widen as she grabs her rifle and rolls, just barely in time to avoid the blast of retaliation. She grapples blindly, leaping the moment she feels it connect, and ends up stumbling heavily upon hitting the ground.

 _Fool_ , she chides herself viciously and retreats, peppering her target’s shields with an ineffective spray of bullets as she dodges around a corner. _Wake up_. Now her enemies have her on the ground, on the move, this is the worst _possible_ place for her.

“ _Heads up!_ ”

Even as she curses the reflex Widowmaker whirls toward Tracer’s voice, firing center mass without thinking. She falters until what can only be described as a giggle from her left confirms that the automatic burst failed to connect.

Widowmaker does more than falter, then.

 _Relief_. This time she cannot lie to herself. The feeling of realizing she has failed to land a fatal shot is instant, unthinking relief.

She has to get out of here.

If the girl would only stop making it so _difficult_ she could _—_ she fires wildly, seeking only to drive Tracer back. She doesn’t question the fear-ridden hesitance now, she only has to get away, get space, where she can think clearly. Meanwhile she twists, dodges, mentally keeping track of the girl’s position. When she catches a glimpse of a lopsided grin and Tracer blinks out of existence it’s the work of a moment to backtrack, estimate, and the hard carbon-fiber point of her toe lashes out at exactly the place Tracer had been standing three seconds before.

Her timing, of course, is perfect. The girl materializes just in time for the vicious swing kick to connect; there’s a violent choke as she stumbles back and collapses, retching for air and clutching her throat. She could be finished off in an instant, even through those ridiculous goggles Widowmaker can see that Tracer is blinded by watering eyes _—_ but her visor sliding into place reveals a small group of Talon mercenaries about to round the corner anyway.

Her purpose is as a sniper and assassin, not clean-up on the ground. Let the grunts earn their pay for once. She’s disabled the Overwatch agent, hasn’t she? In lieu of putting a bullet in Oxton’s skull, she taps her visor back out of the way and grapples back onto a rooftop, returning her focus to the objective she’s been given.

None of which is to say she doesn’t pause and glance back down at the street as gunfire erupts below. There’s a blur of light, another, as Tracer barely recovers in time to dodge around and behind the mercenaries. The telltale blue flash of pulse fire takes out one of the four from behind as they turn to face her; she winks out, reappears what is now behind the line again, opens fire once more, then blinks away through the gap she’s made as the mercenaries twist around, disappearing in a streak around the corner and back toward the main conflict. Moments later an explosion blossoms in her wake.

Widowmaker allows herself a small smile. Of course it would take more than such men to kill her favorite target. If Widowmaker has failed so many times, it would be an unfair demand to make of _them_.

She could have killed the girl herself.

 _Focus on the objective._  The argument feels weaker every time she uses it; here, now, it is paper-thin at best. She cannot even convince herself anymore. _Tracer is not a priority. Defend the objective_.

It’s hardly an arduous assignment.

Overwatch is sloppy. No _—_ she revises her assessment for accuracy as she settles into a shadowed corner of the rooftop, overlooking the main square and the frantic battle there. Overwatch is _exhausted_. They have overextended themselves, overestimated their own abilities, and the combination of their fatigue and Talon’s sheer numbers is taking its toll.

Widowmaker scans the area, taking note of the enemy’s weaknesses. She has barely engaged them herself, but already Pharah is grounded. She’s isolated from the others and favoring her left arm, jets and stabilizing wing on that side blown clean off. All the heavy lifting is falling to the ape; Zaryanova, bleeding badly, has too much on her hands attempting to hold the area and keep her team from being entirely overrun. It’s more effective than it should be, and Widowmaker makes a disgusted noise under her breath. If these mercenaries don’t know better than to bottleneck by now, they deserve what they get.

A flash of blue in the thick of battle. Widowmaker winces. Lena Oxton doesn’t know when to _stop_. It’s as if the girl has no concept of her own mortality _—_ blinking and vaulting over and around the mercenaries pumping fire into...Winston, she supposes, the ape has earned enough grudging respect to think of him by his name.

It’s _idiotic_ , reckless, and Widowmaker spots no less than seven easy kill shots the girl exposes herself to in the middle of the maneuver. And none of those are even counting the ones she herself could be taking, if she wasn’t _—_ gathering information. Watching the target and learning her movements.

But it works. The Talon line breaks enough for Winston to throw those remaining back and retreat to something like cover, behind some rubble.

Her tactical readout gives her the calculation for a cool, clean shot through the eye. Irritably, she flicks the visor away again.

She...she needs to pick her targets, it’s a matter of priority…

An energy blade nearly hits Widowmaker in the face as Overwatch’s battlefield medic sweeps past her position. Tucked in the shadows as she is, pressed against a wall on one side to decrease her chances of being flanked, Mercy doesn’t even see her.

The wall of cold numbness slides into place; she welcomes it, even if it feels thinner and more like artifice than ever. Widowmaker chooses her target.

 _Mercy_ , and Widowmaker’s lips twitch at the sheer pretension of the name, flares the wings of her suit to drop lightly beside the injured Zaryanova. The Russian barely acknowledges her; as Widowmaker calmly increases the zoom on her sights, and then again, she can see how pale the woman’s become, leaning on a damaged wall for support, though her trademark defiance keeps her on her feet and firing into chokepoints regardless. Mercy kneels and grips her staff, and the caduceus glows as she begins setting up the nanobiotic stream.

There would be a certain poetry, Widowmaker muses as she steadies the rifle against the roof and begins to line up her shot, in taking their compassionate doctor through the heart. But the body armor on that quick-response suit is more formidable than it looks, and anyway her handlers are always more pleased with head shots.

Hardly a difficult request, she thinks, settling the crosshairs directly over Mercy’s temple. Her finger caresses the trigger.

And refuses to squeeze.

Unbidden, she remembers that vertigo-inducing misstep the first time she met Overwatch agents after her second attempt to eliminate Tracer. The realization that the girl wasn’t there, and why. The unexpected confusion, the undertone of...not regret _not regret_ , not _—_ grief _—_

Easy, to think of this as nothing but target practice, nothing but a game or an objective, as if she doesn’t know intimately the ripples that can be caused by just one death. One person who never comes back.

So much simpler, if this were some fault in her conditioning. If she didn’t want to take the shot. She _does_. There is a cold rush of satisfaction already pulsing through her in time with her slow heartbeat, singing in her veins. The detached pleasure of a perfect kill. She can taste it, she can taste it already and God, she _wants_ it. She wants it. But. But. _But_.

Not enough. Not enough to overcome the realization chilling her to the bone that she doesn’t want Angela Ziegler to die.

 _Take the shot_.

It doesn’t matter what she _wants_. She is a weapon, a prized weapon but as much a tool as the gun in her hands. She is a means to an end, Overwatch is her target, and if she remembers her training and banishes these useless qualms, remembers the bigger picture, the mission, Talon superiority and her place as their feared left hand, she will take her shot and forget she ever hesitated.

Quick and painless through the temple, snuffing out that inconvenient brilliance and removing it from play. The finest nanobiotic healer in the world taken out by a single gunshot. _Physician, heal thyself._ Poetry. And yet.

She _can’t_. She can’t.

For the first time she can remember, as she lifts her head away from her scope and raises the rifle out of firing position, Widowmaker feels _cold_.

The low thunder of rocket boosters and cannon fire draws her attention even though the sudden pounding in her head. A garish pink meka roars over the nearest line of rooftops, as clear a target as any against the cloudless sky, and Widowmaker’s shaking fingers don’t even twitch against her rifle. The air feels too thick, too _present_. It’s too warm against her skin, like a child with a soaring fever, and for the first time she is _trapped_ in this battle and not merely observing it.

Except she _is_ an observer, out of the line of fire, and sees long before any of them when a Talon mercenary braces a rocket launcher, the explosive arcing almost lazily skyward to meet D.va in midair.

Widowmaker rarely lets herself become distracted by, or dependent on, tapped enemy communications. She doesn’t need them this time, either. The explosion that sends the smoking mech crashing to earth would drown out Overwatch even were she close enough to hear them, but she _feels_ the strike team’s cry all the same.

 _The child knew the risks_ , Widowmaker thinks coolly. _As did they all. Soldiers die in war_.

The truth of it does not explain the faint pleasure, relief not half as intense but no less present, when a brightly-colored figure crawls its way out of the wreckage and returns fire at the encroaching mercenaries.

It never _has_ been wise to underestimate an Overwatch agent.

Hana Song is not safe yet, no more than her foundering teammates; but the handful of armored mercenaries moving in on her will never reach their target. Pharah has returned, for one, and between her, and Tracer, and Mercy, someone will be able to get the girl to safety.

Widowmaker frowns, impatience grinding at something in her chest. Is Overwatch suddenly blind? She couldn’t eliminate D.va herself from here, not easily, not from this angle _—_ but Talon reinforcements are pouring in. What are they waiting for?

Winston, whom she had expected to be the first to break for the crash site, hasn’t moved. Pharah is in no better position than the girl, only better-armored; and she is working frantically to keep the flood of Talon cannon fodder away from her teammates. Zaryanova’s stubborn defensive line on the other side of the square is holding, but barely; bullets miss her by inches as she’s forced to back slowly toward what Widowmaker now suspects is a badly injured Winston.

Out of the corner of her eye, the hint of blue light in a shattered storefront. She can’t help but smile.

It’s a brave charge, when it begins. Widowmaker plays it in her mind moments before Tracer has even moved. Not perfectly, of course; she never _can_ tell with certainty when or where that little brat is going to move. But Tracer is predictable enough that Widowmaker can already see what will happen. It will open with a quick burst of fire, to draw attention; then a blink, so that by the time fire is returned she will be halfway across the square. She may bolt straight to D.va’s side, but that is unlikely; there is a far better chance of her choosing instead to draw fire away from the girl by stopping to harry the mercenaries from the center of the action. Then, eventually, she will blink away and get her teammate on her feet, to help her to cover.

Part of Widowmaker touches her rifle, itching to take her best shot and fail. But the rest of her shivers at the thought of _succeeding_.

It unfolds exactly as she expected, for the briefest possible moment. A loud, taunting cry of something too distorted from the English language for Widowmaker to entirely understand what it was supposed to be. The expected bold flurry of pulse rounds, and the flash of distortion in the air as she tries to blaze across the field.

Tries.

Even as heads and weapons turn toward the new disturbance, the bright light of Tracer’s harness blinks, flickers, and goes dark.

Talon opens fire on empty space, but only just, and only because Tracer’s reflexes save her where time could not. Her frantic dive-and-scramble, throwing herself flat behind a knee-high wall and curling into a ball, will not protect her for long. Angela Ziegler leaps up in a brief flare of light and the Talon rocket launcher roars again. Only a projected shield blossoming around her at the last possible moment saves her life; even then, the shield shatters under the impact and enough shockwave remains to throw _Mercy_ into the side of a building.

In desperation Pharah tries to break from cover and is driven back under a hail of gunfire. Even Tracer is visibly trying to find a way out, shouting something over her shoulder that Widowmaker cannot hear _—_ and Hana Song, moving slowly and unable to stand, manages to crawl under her mech and buy herself perhaps a few seconds as three men move on her.

Widowmaker’s head is pounding. She is too hot and too cold at once. This is too numb to feel like a decision _—_ but nothing has felt like her own choice, she realizes, since she opened her eyes and Talon gave her a name.

Her hands move of their own accord, tucking the rifle against her shoulder and adjusting the sights. She does not activate her visor. Hana Song relocating has, ironically, placed her in greater danger than ever; Widowmaker has a clear shot now.

She chooses her target, and fires.

Before the first Talon merc hits the ground, she fires again.

She doesn’t stop. D.va is clear and two of the five pressing the downed Fareeha Amari are dead before Talon realizes what is happening and her earpiece all but explodes with shouting.

In the moment of confusion before they open fire Widowmaker whirls and picks out one final priority target _—_ the lone rocket launcher that has been so much trouble. One shot. One kill.

Gunfire tears the air around her to ribbons, but she’s ducked away just in time. If they are quick enough, determined enough, perhaps the chaos within the Talon ranks will allow Overwatch to rally and escape. Perhaps not. If it ever mattered to her, in some tiny soft corner of her mind, Widowmaker no longer has time to care about their fate.

Talon can bury its enemies in bodies, and she is alone now.

She takes a brief moment to tear out her comm and crush it under one heel, and then she runs.

* * *

Even for an abandoned Watchpoint, it’s too quiet.

It is nothing short of a miracle that no one died today. Their worst injuries are Hana's, and a nasty piece of shrapnel carefully removed from Winston’s leg; a nanobiotic injection is already working to heal that wound. Everyone else: cuts and bruises, which Angela has been patching up in between caring for her two worst patients after Fareeha.

At least, they are normally her worst patients. When Hana Song meekly accepts drowsiness-inducing painkillers and Winston sits through a medical exam without even complaining, something has gone terribly wrong.

It’s...been a long day. And it will be a longer night.

Angela jumps as a warm hand closes over hers. She’d been reaching for a granola bar to stave off hunger for another hour, but Zarya will have no argument.

“Eat,” she says, holding up a bowl of chicken soup. There’s a softness to her voice that makes Angela pause; after a moment Zarya’s other hand comes up to run the backs of her fingers over Angela’s cheek. For all her strength, Zarya may be the gentlest woman she has ever met. “Eat,” she says again, even softer. “Real food. We need your strength.”

After a moment of letting her eyes drift closed, Angela sighs and takes the hot bowl of soup.

“Thank you,” she says quietly.

Zarya looks at her for a moment, then nods and leans in to kiss her cheek. It’s light, but she lingers with her forehead pressed to Angela’s temple for too long to hide the emotion behind it. Angela leans into her and lets herself be held until they can both breathe easier; after a long moment, Zarya squeezes her shoulder and moves off to distribute more soups.

Instinctively, Angela glances at Lena. Not only has she not said a word, she doesn’t even shoot a knowing look over the rim of her tea. She doesn’t seem to be drinking it at all, and she winces and shakes her head when Zarya tries to give her a soup bowl.

“ _Winston_ ,” says Athena lightly.

Everyone except the sleeping Hana jumps.

Winston shifts nervously. “Oh, uh...yes, Athena. What is it?”

“ _My sources are indicating Talon activity consistent with the possibility you described_.” The room, if possible, goes even more silent. “ _Talon appears to be mobilizing its forces in pursuit of an unusual target. It does not appear to be an external objective. Timing, location and number of forces deployed, as well as several reported incidents that appear to be related, suggest the object they seek to retrieve is a rogue Talon operative of considerable skill and standing. It is statistically unlikely for this target to be anyone but the assassin known as Widowmaker_. _You asked to be notified_.”

“I did.” Winston says, downcast. “Thank you, Athena.”

“ _You’re welcome, Winston_.”

None of the team is willing to look at each other. Angela is as guilty of it as the rest of them. Nobody wants to be the first to say it.

“So…” Lena’s voice, small and vulnerable, finally breaks the silence. “We’re gonna help her...right?”

Everyone else on the team exchanges uncomfortable looks. Lena’s grip tightens on her tea.

“We’ve got to!” she insists. “ _Winston—!_ ” She looks between the others for support. “What’re we supposed to do, sit back an’ watch? They’ll kill her, you _know_ they will!”

Angela holds up a placating hand. “Lena,” she points out, “We have no way of knowing whether Widowmaker would even accept our help.”

“Not unless we try,” Lena says stubbornly.

Angela rubs her hands over her face. She is a healer, but sometimes a call has to be made, however much it hurts. And yet it feels too cold, in the face of Lena’s fire, in the face of her own _hope_.

“Widowmaker almost certainly saved our lives today,” she finally admits.

Lena leaps to her feet to pounce on the opening. “We can’t just let ‘er die now,” she says. “Winston, _you_ were the one who said her conditioning might be on the blink!”

“What?” says Fareeha.

“When was this?” asks Zarya.

“You were supposed to be _sleeping_ ,” Angela accuses her.

“...Oops?” Lena gives a sheepish, vaguely-apologetic grin and then, as she usually does when she’s in trouble, tries to hurry things along so everyone forgets. “That’s not the point. She’s in trouble ‘cause she helped us! And what if Talon doesn’t kill her? What if they get her back? She’ll never have another chance!”

Fareeha shifts, visibly uncomfortable.

“It could be a trap,” she says. Lena frowns, and she sighs. “Maybe Talon expects us to try to help.”

“Bait,” Zarya agrees reluctantly.

“And even if it’s not a trap…” Angela and Winston exchange a long look before she continues. Amélie would understand. “Lena, _liebchen_...we are all that’s left. We nearly lost everyone today, and if Overwatch falls a lot of innocent people will die. I don’t know that we can risk that.” Her voice hardens in spite of herself. Triage. Set your teeth and do what must be done. “Not for one assassin.”

It would have been significantly easier to kick a puppy than to knowingly disappoint Lena Oxton. She wears her heart on her sleeve, as exposed and delicate as the accelerator glowing on her chest, and Angela watches her heart break in her eyes.

“Winston?” she pleads.

Winston stares at the ground, brow furrowed, for a long time. When he finally looks up, his expression is so guilty that Lena takes a step back.

“No...” Her voice cracks. “Winston, we’re s’pposed to help people!”

Winston looks agonizingly unhappy. “Tracer, none of us like this any more than you.” He glances around the room and sighs. “But I...can’t risk the lives of Overwatch agents to rescue Widowmaker. Too much depends on us. There’s no mission. I’m sorry.”

Lena’s shoulders are tight, and she refuses to make eye contact with anyone. After a tense heartbeat, she nods silently and turns to leave, pulling her goggles off. Angela doesn’t miss the oh-so-casual swipe of Lena’s sleeve over her eyes, but she’s gone in a flash of light before anyone can reach out for her.

* * *

Tracer glances at the time again and bounces anxiously on the balls of her feet.

It’s been an hour. She can’t wait much longer.

Right stupid, crying. Doing all this for _Widowmaker_ of all things. They don’t even _like_ each other.

But...she _knows_ that stuck-up sniper better than the others. Amélie was before her time, and a Slipstream pilot wouldn’t have been interacting with the Lacroix...ses? Lacroixi? anyway. She didn’t know Amélie, she doesn’t have that flash of pain Mercy and Winston and Reinhardt and some of the others have whenever Widowmaker shows up. Tracer’s only ever known her as she is now. And...

She’s hesitated before, she _has_ , and Tracer knows how to get under her skin and she’s always the one sent to keep her busy in the field because their skills balance out nicely, so she knows how Widowmaker, not Amélie, thinks and responds, and they’ve even started having running jokes, and...well, doesn’t that sorta make Tracer responsible for her? Especially if the mask is cracking a little. Closest thing the poor girl’s got to a friend these days, isn’t she?

What _is_ the plural of Lacroix? That’s gonna bug her for days now.

Right, that’s enough of that. Sitting around pretending to be asleep so Mercy won’t come in and try to make her feel better has gone on long enough.

(She does feel a bit guilty about that. She’s not mad at Mercy, or any of them. She gets it. And it means a lot having people wanting to check in on her. It’d just be real inconvenient for anybody to come knocking on the door thinking she’s in bed and find her pacing around checking the charge on her harness every five minutes.)

Tracer nods firmly to herself, rolls up the sleeves of her jacket, and fastens the gauntlets on over her gloves. Knocks ‘em against the wall a few times to make sure they’re tight enough and not gonna get twisted out of position on her. Then, very carefully, she cracks the door open and jogs down the eerily dark hallway.

She doesn’t pass anyone, which is...weird? It never gets less weird, to tell the truth. Watchpoints used to be places full of light and bustle. Now it’s just creepy. And full of spiders. She frowns and picks up the pace a bit.

There’s a light on when she passes the kitchen, but the door’s closed; Tracer just ducks under the window and slips past. The real problem is around the corner, in the section they’ve designated as a gym. Of _course_ Zarya’s still up. A careful peek around the corner confirms she’s at least facing the opposite direction, but that also means she’s facing a wall of mirrors. And she’d _definitely_ notice a blur of slipstream blue.

Tracer bites her lip, checks the time again, and forces herself to wait. Explaining why she’s sneaking around in the middle of the night would be way more time-consuming than playing this smart.

After a few minutes, Zarya finally sets down her weights and picks up a towel, rubbing it over her face. Tracer doesn’t wait for a better chance, and she doesn’t risk the whine of a blink either. Just leaps lightly across the open doorway and runs on tiptoe down the hall until she’s certain she wasn’t spotted.

And that’s the last minefield. As soon as she’s carefully crept through the doors at the end of the hall and closed them quietly behind her, she bolts for the stairs and takes them three at a time.

The control room’s empty when she gets there, and Tracer takes a moment to slump against the wall and give a sigh of relief. She probably could have talked her way through this, but she’d rather not lie to anybody. She pushes the security door open and then blinks across the room to turn the volume on Athena’s speakers as far down as it’ll go.

A chat box pops up on the nearest monitor instead. _Hello, Tracer_.

Tracer grins and activates a holo-keyboard. _Hey, Athena_ , she types back, grabbing a pair of wireless headphones and slipping them over her ears. She switches the headphones online and pulls down the microphone as she takes a battered datachip out of her pocket. “Here goes,” she says quietly. “Athena, you with me?”

“ _All systems functioning normally. My sensors indicate you are experiencing heightened levels of adrenaline. Is there a threat I should know about?_ ”

Tracer gives a little smile. “Nah. Not to us, love.” She might not have the same closeness with Athena as Winston does, but the Overwatch AI had been ported into Slipstream fighters to augment mission control and pilot interfacing. A girl can always count on her wingman. “Listen, old girl. You still tracking that Talon mobilization?”

If a computer can sound miffed, Athena manages it. “ _Of course_. _Latest intelligence indicates Talon operative Widowmaker continues to elude capture. However, I am obligated to remind you that Winston has chosen not to assign a mission in response. Ignoring that decision could place you at risk of disciplinary action._ ”

Tracer pauses before setting her shoulders and determinedly typing in her access codes. “Winston can do what he likes.”

 _“Very well. Previous experience suggests warning you of the dangers of this course of action would be a waste of time, Agent Oxton. Your field clearance does allow you access to this data._ ”

“Right then.” Tracer slides her datachip into the nearest port. “Patch this in for real-time network updates. I need everything you’ve got.”

* * *

As the shuttle doors seal behind her, Tracer lets out a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding.

She’d worried the opening of the shuttle bay doors might attract attention, but everything’s quiet. She fiddles with her datachip as she turns to place her hand over the cockpit-access scanner. It slides open before she touches it, and she’s barely managed to take half a step backward in surprise when all the lights in the shuttle turn on as well.

Tracer freezes when she sees the copilot’s seat already occupied.

After a too-long moment, she feigns a wide grin.

“...Winston!” she exclaims with a worrying level of forced cheerfulness. “Hey there, big fella! How’s, uh...how’s it going?”

“Tracer.” He waves without looking up from the banana he’s dipping in a jar of peanut butter. “Up late?”

Belatedly, she hides the datachip behind her back and gives a series of frantic nods, smiling even wider. “Yup! Thought I’d, uh...do some...routine maintenance on the shuttle!” She bangs her fist against the bulkhead for emphasis.

“Mmm-hmm.” He raises one massive eyebrow at her, then wordlessly holds out a hand. Tracer can feel her false smile freeze as she hesitates and gives him a weak high-five.

“Down low?” she says with very little hope. Winston pushes his glasses further up his nose and waits patiently.

After several long heartbeats of thinking _no, I won’t, I don’t have to, it’s not fair,_ Tracer finally bites down on all the bitter things she wants to yell at him and hands over the chip. Winston nods, turns, and uses his toes to type in a brief command on the shuttle console. A series of holographic maps and diagrams pop up, and Tracer doesn’t care until she recognizes the readout on one of them. A crisscrossing red line, superimposed over a city map.

“Wait,” she says, looking between the console and the datachip that’s still in Winston’s hand. “Is that…?”

“Are we going after Widowmaker,” he rumbles, finally cracking a smile. “Or not? It’s taking you long enough to buckle in.”

She scrambles into the pilot seat and starts strapping herself in and running pre-flight checks before she has a chance to think about it.

“You said...What was all that, then?!”

Her best friend winces, rubbing the back of his neck self-consciously. “I said I couldn’t risk Overwatch agents on a mission like this,” he mutters, peering into his peanut butter jar so he has something to do. “That doesn’t mean _I_ can’t do anything to help. I thought I would wait for you, once Athena said you’d be coming.”

Tracer shoots a wry look at the ceiling. “Oh, she did, did she?” A touch to the thrusters, and the shuttle lifts off. “Nice to know you can keep a secret, there.”

“ _I only acted according to protocol_ ,” Athena says primly. “ _Winston is the systems administrator for Overwatch in its current incarnation_.”

“I outrank you,” Winston translates smugly, stretching and cracking his back. Tracer makes a rude gesture at him as the shuttle gets above normal traffic altitude and she can really open up the throttle.

“Snitch,” she mutters.

Athena sounds hurt. “ _I acted in what I perceived to be your best interest, Tracer_.”

She can’t hold back a grin anymore. Athena’s network is tied into the shuttle controls; Tracer grabs the coordinates of Widowmaker’s last known sighting and uses the pattern of deployed Talon forces to create a projection of where she’s likely to go, then feeds the coordinates to the autopilot before kicking her feet up on the console.

“Yeah, love,” she says with an affectionate pat for the wall. “I know.”

Winston stretches again, this time with a massive, gaping yawn. “I’m going to take a nap,” he announces. He places a hand on Tracer’s shoulder. “Let we know when we’re ten minutes out. And when we get there, you follow _my_ lead. Understood?”

“No problem, big guy.” She means it, and this time the little smile she tosses over her shoulder is genuine.

Winston grunts, but stops to return the smile before heaving himself back into the main body of the shuttle. Tracer takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly. Her and Winston, facing the world together. Everything feels _proper_ again. She cracks her knuckles.

“All right, Athena,” she says into the empty cockpit. A few familiar keystrokes shrink the updating map of Widowmaker’s chaotic route through London into one corner of the holoscreen as Tracer pulls up a video player. “Let’s get me some news reports and surveillance footage, yeah? And tap us into whatever local radar you can find, I don’t want any surprises up here…”

* * *

She has managed to lose them.

For now.

She is not naive enough to think that it will last more than a moment. A faint whisper of air is enough for Widowmaker’s left hand to snap up, clicking her visor into place. Thermal scans tell her less than she would like, but she at least confirms that the restroom beneath her is empty before kicking out the air-conditioning vent.

It goes against her instincts. Widowmaker does not _cause_ collateral damage. Not when given a choice, at least; and shock and awe operations are better suited to someone like Reaper, or to hyperaggressive grunts. She does not use civilians as a shield.

When facing Overwatch the idea was merely distasteful. Sloppy, she had told herself. Amateurish. Now, finally, she is able to recognize a sort of moral repugnance, but it’s far too late for that. Talon is not Overwatch. Civilians are no shield for even a clumsy coward to hide behind. They are cannon fodder, lambs for the slaughter, and she has led wolves into their midst.

No choice. No alternative. She has nowhere else to run. With Talon gunships finally in a true search pattern the rooftops are no longer safe; they have forced her underground.

Not for the first, third, or fiftieth time tonight she regrets throwing away her comm. She suspects both her weapon and visor have tracking devices, and that is optimistic; the odds that Talon has not placed a tracking implant in her own body grow slimmer every time she thinks about it. But at the same time, giving up either of the tools she has grown to depend on will sign her death warrant anyway. Better to make them pay for every inch in blood.

 _This is what you wanted, no?_ she thinks coolly as she splashes cold water on her face and leaves the filthy restroom. _To create the perfect killer? May meeting her bring you joy_.

Every moment she spends walking through the grimy subway station she can feel bullets in her back; she ignores the quiet localized panic and frantic whispers as she skirts along the wall trying to shove her way through the crowd.

Even if she had somehow managed the time and opportunity to exchange the awful catsuit for normal clothing she would stand out too easily. There is only one advantage to this; as she vaults absently over a turnstile, the nearest attendant’s protest dies in his throat as she pins the young fool to the wall with a single cold glance.

She slides her visor down again. Even as she hurries down the stairs, a rear-view camera picks up a disturbance near the front doors. Humans and omnics alike backpedalling to create an empty space as quickly as they can. Matte-black armor and the glint of red laser sights.

She checks her rifle as she breaks into a run. Ammunition, normally something stored in excess, has become precious to her over the last several hours. It will not last her through this engagement.

Widowmaker wonders, not for the first time, why she is doing this. The question hurts her head. Because _—_ is it about Overwatch? No. No, not really. And yet, and yet…

She is Talon’s. They made her. Everything else is a lie. She is a valued asset, their most trusted agent. Why is she running from them like a hunted creature? She should surrender, should...return to the fold...she would be welcomed, they warned her that her conditioning might cause confusion sometimes, if she asked them to they would…

Erase her. Drown her in ice and stinging chemicals until every hint of emotion washed away again. Oh, it sounds like such a comfort, so much easier, but...it hurts. She remembers that suddenly and suddenly it matters, that Talon hurts her. Matters that so many of her targets are noncombatants whose only crime is threatening Talon’s influence, matters that none of Talon’s grand plans benefit anyone but them. Not even her, whom they are so quick to say they value, save for when she makes a mistake.

This is not about Overwatch. She does not even know why she keeps thinking of them.

She does not intend to surrender.

“Stop,” she says as she presses against the corner. She glances at the young man and his daughter as they begin to walk past her, into the open. “This exit is closed.”

The man, dark-skinned and long-haired, takes one look at the sleek sniper rifle held against her chest and does not argue. He has barely pulled the child back a step when the first Talon soldier steps out of the stairwell and opens fire. Bullets shatter the tiles on the far wall where the young father had been standing a second before, and screams erupt around them as Widowmaker deactivates her visor, and aims with her own eyes.

One.

The leader drops.

Two. Three. Bodies crumple in the staircase but she has to duck back again to dodge a spray of automatic fire, and the sound of footsteps in the tiled corridor says accurate sniper work will no longer be enough. She bolts down the short hall as the lovely weapon distorts in her hands and whirls to pepper her pursuers with rapid fire before ducking back around and onto the platform itself.

Empty, by some miracle. The wave of relief makes her knees weak, just for a moment, shocking her with its intensity. Then the clinical focus snaps back into place and she drops to one knee, opening fire down the hall in as many quick bursts as she dares. She is better than them, and their body armor is laughable _—_ but she can do nothing but slow them down.

She risks a glance over her shoulder. If she breaks, now, and runs for the edge of the platform, she can escape down the subway tunnel. There must be exits, alcoves she can use for cover…

Or step on the third rail and deny Talon their kill. She will not entertain that thought, not yet.

A bright light approaching, and the sound of metal banging against concrete, interrupts that plan. Widowmaker spares a flinch for the thought of the people on the approaching train, and resigns herself to the inevitable. There will be no escape for her that way, then. A venom mine in such close quarters would thin the group, perhaps even enough _—_ but she has long since run out of charges.

She grits her teeth. Very well then. They will not overrun her cheaply.

She fires indiscriminately into the wall of Talon forces until she is forced to back up; then some fit of pride or pique has her shift her grip, switch the crude automatic weapon back to the smooth, powerful sniper rifle she prefers; she may as well die this way. _One_. She picks them off as they come onto the platform, before they manage to find her and shoot. _Two. Three_. She will not manage a fifth. She can see that already. But she will take one more with her.

She is lifting the rifle one last time when an armored gorilla appears out of thin air.

By the time Widowmaker has recovered from her confusion enough to blink rapidly and lower her weapon, Talon is in chaos. Winston was apparently not injured as badly as she had thought _._ There is a comforting familiarity in the _lack_ of unexpected relief. His mobility is an observation, nothing more.

Admittedly, his _presence_ has short-circuited most of her mental functions.

Talon is not prepared for this any more than Widowmaker. Winston tears through their line like...well, like an angry gorilla through unprepared mercenaries, she really has no idea how else to describe it. One poor fool in Talon armor flies over her head and strikes the opposite wall hard enough to crack the tile. She glances at him once; he doesn’t move, and appears to have been separated forcibly from his weapon, so she discounts him for now.

With a whine of engines, the Overwatch shuttle she had mistaken for a train edges its way out of the tunnel and settles between Winston and the slightly dazed Widowmaker. After a moment there’s a rush of air and light and she’s forced to shift her weight to compensate for the young woman suddenly leaning on her shoulder.

“Hello, love,” Tracer says cheerfully. “Great night for it!”

And then she’s gone, leaping and tumbling over the battered shuttle like she’s next to weightless. Two more streaks of jagged light in quick succession as the girl vanishes into the connecting corridor; and Widowmaker’s chill of fear is muted, almost a delayed response, but more present than she can ever remember as the girl who _somehow_ started all of this disappears into that killing ground.

She does not have to be afraid for long. Almost as soon as Tracer zips away an explosion shakes the building on its foundations, spewing fire and smoke and unfortunate casualties onto the platform; but even sooner than that the air distorts at Widowmaker’s side and the girl is back, casually raising a hand to shield her eyes from the dust.

“Coulda picked a better spot, though,” she continues as if there had been no interruption. “Wouldn’t believe the trouble we had finding you. Still, no worries. Cavalry’s ‘ere and all.” Then, cupping her hands around her mouth: “ _Winston!_ You okay?”

There’s a low grunt from the other side of the shuttle and a high-pitched scream, followed by the sound of a large fist meeting body armor.

“All fine over here,” the ape responds, knuckling around behind the shuttle. “That’s the last of them for now.”

“Well.” Tracer’s voice is careless and cheerful, which is nothing new; but Widowmaker’s eyes narrow at how unnaturally light it is as the girl watches her. “That was fun. You...alright there, love?”

Windowmaker looks between them, and takes a step back.

The Overwatch agents freeze, glance at each other, and her long-dormant heartbeat starts to thud in her ears.

They could rush her. In close quarters, desperate, exhausted, low on ammunition and facing two-to-one odds, she is outmatched. Overwatch can subdue her easily now. No doubt they will use kind words, call it debriefing, but there will be an interrogation. She has too much blood on her hands, some among their number are bound to want revenge. They will expect gratitude for her life, she has information, they know her skills... _She will not be used again_.

“Easy, now.” Tracer holds her hands up, speaks like she’s facing a frightened animal as she takes a cautious step forward. Widowmaker lifts the rifle, and the girl wisely chooses to freeze.

Winston rolls his shoulders. “We need to keep moving,” he says, voice low and urgent. “Uh...ma’am,” he says, and if Widowmaker were less on edge she might smile at his clear uncertainty as to what he’s meant to call her in polite conversation. “You should come with us.”

The brief urge to smile vanishes. She takes another, larger step back and steadies her aim on Tracer. A warning, for now.

“Whoa, there.” Lena Oxton is unflappable, Widowmaker can hand her that. Her only response to the threat is to hold up a hand to signal her friend to stay put; the other she runs through her hair before dropping it to her side. “No one’s gonna hurt ya. Promise. We don’t want to get cut off by more of your friends, that’s all. Ease up on the trigger finger, yeah?”

Slowly, she lowers the rifle _—_ not far, only enough that she’s no longer looking at Oxton through her sights.

“I did not ask for your help,” she bites out.

“Kinda what we do, all the same.” Lena gives a self-deprecating shrug. “Help people. Hard to turn off. Not to mention we owed you one.” When Widowmaker, willing for the moment to accept this explanation, lets her muzzle dip fractionally lower, the girl smiles. “There we go. Not so hard after all. What do you say we get going? Talk a bit on the way?”

Widowmaker snarls and snaps the gun up to her shoulder again. _Pretty words_ , she thinks sourly. Promises and coercions. They are never anything but a leash, no matter how earnestly meant.

“Right.” Tracer looks pained. “Don’t want to come back with us, then, I take it? ‘s all right, love. We’re not gonna make you.”

“Tracer,” Winston says urgently.

“Ease up, Winston,” she tells him. “Lookit ‘er. Poor thing barely knows what she’s doing. Hey.” Eyes locked on Widowmaker’s, ignoring the deadly weapon pointed at her forehead, Lena edges forward another step. “You can leave if you like, but we can _help_ you.”

“ _How?_ ” The question snaps between them against Widowmaker’s will. It has never been easier to _despise_ this woman, and Overwatch, and all they stand for _—_ for a moment she has never left Talon at all. All the disdain, the bitter desire to destroy this entire vigilante cult for their hypocrisy and self-righteousness that she has always been too much a detached professional shell to indulge in rages in full force. For a moment, until Tracer speaks again, she is more Talon than she has ever been.

Either Oxton is prepared for this, or she doesn’t notice the sudden hatred, because she barely so much as blinks at Widowmaker’s response.

“You can get some sleep, at least,” she says gently. “Eat somethin’. Take a few days someplace safe to figure out what you want to do.”

That...is not what Widowmaker had expected.

She has always been told that Overwatch, and organizations like it, would be eager to “fix” what Talon had done to her _—_ reverse their modifications, integrate her into a unit, give her their uniform and the name of a dead woman and call her a reformed success story.

She has never needed to be told to be disgusted by the suggestion. Her slow heartbeat makes her aim steadier, the changes to her metabolism make hunger a distant memory; her lowered core temperature is all but undetectable to most thermal scans. She has no desire to give up those advantages simply because others dislike them. Nor does she particularly want the kind of camaraderie groups like Overwatch take such pleasure in. She enjoys the quiet, and the dark, and the stillness of solitude.

And Tracer has made no mention of denying them to her. That is a surprise.

Her pride is forced to unbend enough to admit, at least privately, that she is desperately in need of a safe house and supplies. It cannot unbend enough to accept them.

“Talon can track me,” she says shortly. She has to give a mirthless smirk. Their eagerness to help will taper off quickly, now, she suspects.

“Ah!” Winston exclaims instead. “Yes. I think I can fix that, actually. I’ve been working on a device that should be able to pick up on Talon homing beacons so that we can find and disable the locators. It was actually very simple, once I realized I had been going about it the wrong way. All you have to do is isolate _—_ ”

Tracer coughs, loudly but not unkindly, into her hand. Winston clears his throat a few times and trails off into embarrassed mumbling.

Now Widowmaker is truly trapped. She cannot refuse this and live.

But at the same time _—_ trusting herself to Overwatch _—_ she doesn’t know why she’s so terrified of what might happen, when the thought of death or torture at the hands of Talon has only ever made her feel a numb sense of dread. She doesn’t know why her mind goes white at the thought of going...back…

She is standing there frozen when the next train, in an extended series of bangs and shrieks, finally does pull up to the platform. Tracer doesn’t move; Winston turns to wave awkwardly at the wide-eyed commuters staring out of the open doors.

“...Hello, everyone!” he says with a winning smile. “You, uh...might want to wait until the next station. There’s a bit of a mess down there…”

Widowmaker tunes him out.

She wants to run. She wants to turn and flee like a frightened rabbit and never, ever look these thoughts in the eye. She wants the numbness back but at the same time now that she is trapped in this terrible fever she realizes with sick horror how much being conditioned feels like being _dead_. But she cannot _—_ she _can’t—_

The train moves on with a scream that echoes inside her skull.

“Easy. Still with me?”

She squeezes her eyes shut. Damn her, the voice is soft and tender and earnest and it makes it so hard to be afraid. When she looks again, Oxton’s face is too open. It hurts, trying to remember, trying to keep straight why she should want to shoot her, why she doesn’t.

The tracking devices, she thinks. That will be her compromise. She will tolerate Overwatch until she is certain Talon can no longer follow her. Then, she will go her own way. A rejection of their enemy does not make her their friend.

 _Why_ , she wants to ask. But she cannot bring herself to believe they will tell her the truth. Except that she doubts Tracer could lie convincingly if her life depended on it...

Somehow, without her noticing, Lena Oxton has slipped inside the rifle’s range. Inside her guard.

“Y’know,” she points out with a tentative little smile. “You can always change your mind, love.”

 _God_ , she looks so hopeful.

Widowmaker doesn’t take the hand offered her. But she doesn’t run.

Eventually, the shuttle doors slide shut at her back. Part of her, the part still frozen in fear, a deer in headlights, thinks: the sealing of a tomb.

The rest of her grips an overhead handhold like a lifeline, and listens to her heartbeat with growing wonder.


End file.
